Titanium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, germanium, yttrium, zirconium, rhodium, palladium, silver, antimony, hafnium, platinum, gold, praseodymium, thorium and uranium are essential to industry either as pure metals or alloys. These metals are used in the aerospace, nuclear, electronic, machine tool, chemical and heavy industries for a myraid of applications. Many of these metals are difficult to process into pure metals having less than 10,000 parts per million by weight ["PPM" herein) contaminates, such as alkali metals, halides, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. In addition, it is difficult to combine these metals to form mixtures or alloys, such as a nickel-titanium alloy, of these metals having less than 10,000 PPM contaminates.
Impurities outside specification values in these metals, such as metals and alloys based on the Group IVB metals, can cause such metals and alloys based thereon to be brittle and hence, of little use. Impurities such as halides, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and silicon can cause the Group IVb metals and alloys based thereon to be greatly reduced in strength and chemical resistance. Small amounts of silicon and oxygen can be used in Group IVb transition metal alloys, such as hafnium and zirconium alloys.
These metals and alloys thereof are also useful in powder metallurgy for the production of articles which would be more expensive or more difficult to produce by machining or forging from massive metal shapes. This invention is directed toward the production of metal powders and sponge of the above metals and alloys thereof. Articles made by powder metallurgy from such powders can be ground, milled, forged, rolled, drilled, and welded.